


I don't wanna get over you

by Macaron



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Daydreaming, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Luca is a saint with these two, M/M, Romance, but not really hurt because I'm me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 15:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13907250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macaron/pseuds/Macaron
Summary: "Have you thought about what would have happened if you met him in a different way?" Luca asks."I don't think about it." Armie says."I think about it all the time." Timmy says.





	I don't wanna get over you

  
"I don't think about it." Armie says.   
  
"I think about it all the time." Timmy says. 

 

 

They are sitting in the restaurant late at night, just the two of them, talking about Crema,as always, talking about the future (“ My future as hobo?” Armie asks and laugh, as Oliver would have done), talking about the premiere of Suspiria (“Luca they’ll love it!”) and not talking about Timmy. In that moment Luca asks him the question for the first time.

"Have you thought about what would have happened if you met Timmy in a different way?"

 

 

 

There is something wrong to be here, in his hotel’s room in L.A. when Armie isn’t here. This is his city, Timmy shouldn’t be here without him. It’s not wrong but it’s not right. So maybe talking about him with Luca is his way to make this right.

He could talk about Armie all the time, damn most of the time he really do. Unintentionally of course. Armie's name just slips out of his mouth during a Q&A, during a late show where he should talk about Lady Bird and the Oscars, in a phone call with Pauline when she mentions Mc Donalds (because Armie really loves McDonalds), when he picks up the yo-yo to a child in the street because "Do you know that  Armie can do a lot of tricks with the yo-yo?"

 

“Batman! He would have to play Batman when he was only nineteen and I would go and watch him at the cinema as I went to see The Dark Knight. His acting is exceptional and is the perfect Batman. When I get home I look at my mother and I tell her that I absolutely want to be an actor. Maybe I'll meet him at a premiere for this reason and I meet him, before… before the rest of his life” Timmy doesn’t know how to say “before his family” without looking a bad person, without feeling a bad person.

“Do you know that if he plays Batman at the age of nineteen when you watch him at the cinema you're only ten years old? What kind of relationship could there be between a twenty-one old and a child?"

“Nothing can happen of course, this isn’t Lolita after all.”

“So?”

“So I would have met him somewhere else” Timmy says.

 

 

 

 

“My play.” Armie says. “ He comes to see my play. I didn’t call you after reading the script, you didn’t convince me to accept Oliver's role and you and James came back to the idea of Shia as Oliver. But he comes to my play.” Armie has starred in some movies that haven’t been so successful, as usual, perhaps because he's not good enough, perhaps because nobody is ever interested in finding out if he's good enough. And then there was the play and has nothing to lose so he accepted even if he never did theater. Fuck them all, anyway.

“There is the guy of that indie movie in the audience.” Someone says. “That kid, who was almost an Academy Award nominee.” Someone else adds and Armie knows that is Timothée .

“You should go to say hi to Chalamet.” Says his publicist after the show.

 He doesn’t want to go to say hi. Armie has forgotten a line and has almost fallen during two scenes, he doesn’t want to go to say hi to anyone, especially someone who has been a candidate for a lot of awards in the last year.

“Maybe he could tweet something about the play. A lot of people will come to see it, the fangirls love him. It could help the play.” Armie doesn’t want to say to this kid and in this moment he isn’t even so involved in his own carrer, but there are a lot of people that work on this show and Armie cares about them, they deserve more than a mediocre actor.

He can go to say hi.

Timothée is sitting on a sofa in one of the dressing rooms and is reading so carefully one of the theater flyers that he doesn’t even notice when Armie opens the door. There's something about him that hits Armie immediately, something he's seen in the film too (because Armie has obviously seen the movie), the kid always seems so focused on what he does, he seems so passionate. He makes him want to be passionate about something.

“Hi I’m Armie! You are Timmy right?”  He shouldn’t have called him Timmy, he does not even know him, it's inappropriate. But Timmy smiles in surprise and drops the flyer as he jumps up to meet him, and so begins.

“You were amazing in the play!” Timmy says after they introduced each other and of course Armie doesn’t believe him.

 

 

 

 

“I say to him that is amazing because, Luca, you saw him act and it’s great, he is so expressive with his face, his voice. What I would tell him otherwise?”

“And of course he doesn’t believe you.” Luca snorts.

“Yeah, classic Armie. He starts to say a lot of shit about his acting and put himself down.”

“Thanks man,  but really I wasn’t remotely good as you said. I even forgot two lines!” Armie says shrugging his shoulders

“Yeah I know, but isn’t just one line that makes a play.” Damn, he shouldn’t have said that.

“You know?”

“It’s not the first- I have already come to see the show when it was just started.”

"So why the fuck did you come back?" Armie asks him, as if it were impossible to believe that someone would come back to see him. To him. For a moment during that conversation, Timmy wonders what made this handsome man with a certain amount of talent, believe that he was not worthy of being looked twice.

"It was good." And when he tells Armie he seems to see inside him, everything he feels is written on his face. "I don’t know… I had a free morning and I liked it the last time, and I'm a fan of yours man, I've consumed my DVD of The Social Network.”

"No one has ever consumed the Social Network DVD, except the West Wing’s  fans."

"You were at my age, did you? And you played two twins together before it was cool, you were really extraordinary."

"They just needed a very tall guy.”

"But it was your face that did all the work! I liked your face- no wait this sounded much better in my head, aloud it's just awkward."

“Because of course I’m always good to embarrass myself even in front of a stranger who does not even know who I am” He adds to Luca. “Because I’m an idiot.”

 

 

 

In the end that stupid bit about Armie's face is what it takes to break the ice, to make them start talking. And they talk, talk, talk. About the show, about acting in theater because for Armie is the first time even if it is older, about cinema, about New York.

“You should definitely try that steakhouse for a late dinner.” Then, as if speaking of late had given him a shock, Timmy interrupts himself. “Damn it’s really late, should you go to do the stage door?”

“No I don’t do it after every show. I should go home-“ and when he says it he realizes that for the first time in a month he forgot to go home immediately after the show. It’s not a big deal, Elizabeth and the kids will not be worried, it’s not so late. It’s just strange, different. He does not want to run away from the theater to go home, he feels good. He feels in a safe space. Here on the couch of a dressing room talking to a guy who did not even know an hour ago he feels safe, he feels at home.

“And then?” Luca asks him.

Then he says goodbye to the kid and go home, to his family and  Elizabeth asks him if the play went well because he sparkles today. And he follows Timmy on instagram, because it is the right thing to do, it would be so rude not to do it.

“And nothing else? Would you do nothing like did you do nothing for Call me by your name?”

"Of course I don’t do anything, what should I do? I talked to Timmy for an hour in a dressing room, I'm ten years older than him, we have nothing to say to each other."

"You had a lot to tell him in that dressing room, you two obviously hit it off.”

Armie often thinks to what they had to say, especially on the way home, especially when he is alone.

 One day, Timothée posts a picture of a steak, not just a steak  he posts a steak in a plate during dinner, and Armie asks him about that famous steakhouse.

"I'm in town, do you want me to go with you one of these nights?"

He wants Timmy to go with him on of these nights but he's not sure it's the right thing to want it. He says yes anyway.

 

 

 

And so begins. For real this time.

A dinner in a steakhouse becomes an after-dinner in a club and then a breakfast before the show and then a walk to Timmy's favorite vinyl store and then a chat on the stairs of the emergency exit with a bottle of wine in one hand and a joint in the other. They talk and laugh and it's all so natural and warm. In those late-night talks outside a club or in his apartment with a movie in the background, Timmy feels warm. As when he was hiding under the covers with Pauline as a child and pretending that everything else outside wasn’t real , that the world was only under those blankets with a torch to illuminate it. With the difference that Armie is not his sister and when he approaches him to light a cigarette Timmy just wants  to kiss him, with the difference that Armie is not his sister and when he falls asleep on him during a movie Timmy thinks about how he would wake up the morning naked after a night of fucking. But these thoughts are only a small part of their relationship.

In those nights with Armie, Timmy feels the same feeling of warmth, of security, of being completely himself. It’s like coming home.

“Do you meet Elizabeth at some point of your fairytale or what?” Luca’s questions interrupt his fantasies.

“Of course I meet Elizabeth and the kids. I’ m not his dirty little secret. Armie isn’t like that. He is the guy who dances on streets of Crema with strangers, he is open, he wants that everyone to feel welcome. He does not invent lunches with his colleagues to hide his meetings with me, he does not save me on the phone with a fake name, he isn’t like this. Armie says "I'm with Timmy" when she calls, as he would if he was with Nick and then invites me to dinner with them. He is one of the good guys.”

“He certainly is. But you aren’t Nick.”

“I’m not Nick. I’m- what we have is different.” He thinks about it for few seconds. “It’s easier with Elizabeth. I like her, because is simple to like Elizabeth, because she make  my favorite milkshake and she ‘s brilliant and sweet but she is just his wife. She is not a real person, no of course she is just she doesn’t seem to be. She isn’t really my friend, she isn’t my family. We chat at dinner sometimes but it's only a few minutes. She is not like him.”

“And how is he?”

“Oh Armie is everything.”

Timothée remains silent for a while and then whispers to himself. “It’s easier.”

“What?”

“To be in love with him.”

“Are you in love with Armie?” Luca does not add "in this fantasy", there is no need.

“When I’m not in love with Armie?”

 

 

 

They touch each other all the time. Armie's fingers in Timmy's hair, his head in the hollow of his shoulder, Timmy dancing at him, laughing.The kisses.  It is not yet something sexual or maybe it has always been. The feeling of existing only when a part of his body is in contact with a part of Timmy’s body.

They don't talk about Call me by your name. Timmy tries to introduce the conversation one time. They are alone at Armie’s place talking about the Oscar, about the movies reviews and the movies and Timmy snorts talking about all those reviews that talked so well about the movie and his Elio but they said that something was missing in the chemistry between the two characters, between the two actors.

"We are actors, we were playing and we did our best. You can’t fake chemistry You can’t act chemistry." Timothée adds.

 Armie says nothing because the only thing he would say is "Sorry". I'm sorry that I was afraid to be so open with someone on the screen, I'm sorry that I was afraid to be not good enough to play Oliver, I'm sorry that I was afraid to be honest with a story, with myself. I'm sorry.

I'm not afraid anymore, not with you in this room. Not with you in my arms in this room.

"You would have been a perfect Oliver!" Timmy doesn’t know how this is neart to the truth. "But I probably would have been with an eternal hard on seeing you all day in shorts and that would have ruined my performance."

"Nothing could ruin your performance. You are too good. I wanna be good as you when I grow up."

“You are already grown up.” Timothée tells him, laughing.

“Then I wanna come back and start over. And meet you on the way. Meet you before.”

“So…nothing changes even if you two don’t play a romance for a movie?” Luca asks him.

“Don’t we?” Armie smiles. “I’m the new guy in town, in his town. We don’t have bicycles but he still takes me around and shows me his favorite places. We eat together, we watch movies, we read books and sometimes scripts and instead of playing the piano he tries to invent a rap for me. I’m still a mess and he isn’t. And what I feel for him is something that is beyond love, even beyond the love that I feel for my wife. It's a connection, is a bond. It’s like being with him to be me.”

“But it’s still different. In Crema you had no choice, in this reality you have a choice. He could go out with his friends, you could go out with yours. You know New York, everyone speaks your language. You are not obliged to always be together. it's a choice.”

"And in Crema for part of the time there was my wife. You speak English, there are several Nick friends in Italy that I know, there was Esther with whom Timmy could speak in French and Milan was near and full of restaurants where to go to eat. It has always been a choice and it never was. "

 

 

 

 

 

Armie imagines meeting Timmy outside a theater, headphones in her ears, a Gucci’s sweater , his hair in front of his eyes. His eyes would be captured by this boy? Would Timmy look up from the floor and see him as no one has ever seen him before?

His phone buzzes. Timmy.

_Armie._

_Would you start again if you could?_

**In a second.**

                                                 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always English is not my first language and I write in english as Oliver talks in italian.  
> The title is from Sorrow by The National.  
> The ending is obvs from CMBYN.  
> A million years ago I read a Beecher/Keller (OZ) fic in which a psychologist asked the protagonists to imagine their meeting outside the prison and it was so good that the idea remained in my head and this thing happened.


End file.
